This lecture was originally given as part of the Charlie Donnelly memorial weekend in Madrid in 2010. It outlines the role of the (so-called) British Battalion in the three days of desperate and bloody fighting that occurred between the 12^th and 14^th February 1937.

Established just after Christmas 1936, the 16^th ‘British’ Battalion was formed mainly from volunteers from Britain and Ireland, though it also included those from a number of other countries, including Cyprus, South Africa, and Australia. The majority of its numbers had arrived in the large influx during December 1936, but during January it also incorporated those that had already been in Spain fighting with the various militia units, with the International Brigades in Madrid and, most recently, as part of the mainly English-speaking company of the French 14^th International Brigade at Lopera near Cordoba in the south and at Las Rozas to the west of the Spanish capital.

By the beginning of January 1937, the English-speaking group at the battalion’s training base at Madrigueras – just to the north of Albacete – numbered around 450. However, the battalion suffered a major setback in mid-January, when a number of the Irish volunteers, already unhappy with British officers’ tendency not to make any distinction between British and Irish volunteers, discovered that two senior British figures in Spain had played a part in British covert activities in Ireland.[1] Following a stormy meeting, the Irish group decided to leave the British Battalion and instead joined the American volunteers in the Abraham Lincoln Battalion who were training at nearby Villanueva de la Jara. Despite this setback, an influx of new arrivals brought the number in the battalion up to approximately five to six hundred by mid-February and the battalion was considered to be of sufficient strength and readiness for front-line action. Alongside the Yugoslav Dimitrovs, the Franco-Belge  and the American Lincolns (who were still training), they comprised the 15 International Brigade, which was commanded by an unpopular Hungarian, under the name of Gal.[2] The 15^th Brigade political commissar was the Yugoslavian Vladimir Copic, who would later replace Gal as Brigade commander.[3]

At this stage, the British Battalion was commanded by a Scottish journalist, Wilf McCartney, who had previously served 10 years in Parkhurst prison for spying for Russia.[4] He was assisted by Tom Wintringham, an influential British Communist and The Party’s specialist in military matters. The battalion political commissar, working alongside McCartney, was Dave Springhall, who had studied at the Lenin School in Moscow, the finishing school for the Party’s elite.[5]

The battalion itself was divided up into four companies, one machine-gun company, plus three of infantry. All but one of its commanders from company level upwards had some level of military experience. The only company commander without was Bill Briskey, a political activist from London, who had already shown himself to be a talented and innovative company commander.[6] Thus, the battalion appeared to be in a fairly healthy state.

However, the wounding of the battalion commander Wilf Macartney in a freak accident – he was his replaced by Wintringham – plus the loss to illness of the experienced company commander, Jock Cunningham, caused some upheaval. Furthermore, the questionable quality of the training was causing real concern to many of the volunteers with military experience. So too, understandably, was the lack of any decent weaponry. As Jason Gurney, a sculptor from London later described:

Something over fifty of them had been in action on the Cordoba Front, and the remainder had received some sort of training in Madrigueras but had still not fired a shot from any of their weapons. Only one Company Commander had been in action, and that, only as the second in command of a platoon. We possessed an assortment of automatic weapons of doubtful value as well as the Russian rifles. The Commander of the Battalion was well intentioned but totally inex­perienced. The other three battalions which formed the Brigade were not very much better off. Whether Gal and his staff knew any more than the rest of us, I cannot tell. But it is quite certain that the Brigade was not the well?armed, well?trained force that various people have pretended it to have been. There was no lack of courage or firm intent amongst the rank and file[,] but events were to prove that this was not enough.[7]

The battle began on the morning of 6 February 1937. Following the failure of the attempts on the west of Madrid in November and December 1936, Franco had prepared a new offensive to the south of the capital, aiming to cut the vital road that linked Madrid with Valencia, the seat of the Republican Government.[8]. Initially intended to be part of a combined operation with Italian troops to the east of the city, Franco decided to push ahead with the Jarama action despite the Italians having being delayed by heavy rain.

Colonel Varela, Franco’s field commander, had five brigades of six battalions at his disposal, plus eleven reserve battalions, totalling some 25 000 men – mostly elite Moroccan regulares and legionnaires – backed up by German armour.[9] The Republicans had a similar number of men available, who had been mustered for an impending Republican offensive in the same sector, which had also been delayed by the weather.

The Rebel offensive pressed forward quickly and by the evening of the 6^th the Republicans had been pushed back to the Jarama River, and Rebel troops were within shelling distance of the Madrid-Valencia road.  Over the next three days, Nationalists continued to force themselves forwards, despite the Republican commander, General Miaja, throwing the elite Spanish Lister, El Campesino and 11^th International Brigades into the defence.

By 7 February, Rebel forces had reached the junction of Manzanares & Jarama rivers, and the following day they captured the bridge across the Manzanares just south of Vaciamadrid and threatened to reach the Madrid to Valencia Road. At the same time, despite desperate defensive efforts by the Republicans forces to the south, Nationalist troops managed to cross the Jarama and prepared themselves for an assault on the Pingarrón Heights, the imposing ridge in front of them. The 15th International Brigade was now thrown in to the defence. The 600 odd British in the battalion left their base at Madrigueras and were taken by train to the International Brigade base at Albacete, and then by lorry to Chinchón, about 25 km from Madrid and 15 km south-east of the site of the rebel advance.

Early in the morning of the 12^th the British were transferred from Chinchón to the junction of the Morata to St. Martín de la Vega and Chinchón to Madrid roads, where they arrived at 5.30 a.m.[10] They were then ordered to move forward towards the Jarama River, which lay beyond the next ridge. Moving in single file, the volunteers in the battalion climbed upwards to a plateau overlooking the Jarama River, near a farmhouse where they quickly established a cookhouse.[11]

The battalion’s new commander, Tom Wintringham, was informed that a Spanish cavalry unit would be protecting their left flank and that half the Dimitrov battalion would be protecting their right. At this point, according to Wintringham, a Russian Engineers’ Officer, who was attempting to install a telephone link to 15^th Brigade headquarters, ordered the battalion to advance beyond what later became known as Suicide Hill and attack the advancing Rebel forces, despite Wintringham’s opposition.[12]

The battalion therefore continued its advance, but with no maps and no knowledge of the position of the Nationalist forces they had no clear idea of when they would meet the enemy.  They moved forward over the ridge then, after crossing a narrow sunken road, began to descend into the valley of the Jarama River, which lay in front of them. At this point, the volunteers began to come under fire from the Nationalist forces, which the Republican command did not realise had already crossed the Jarama river. For Albert Charlesworth, a metal-polisher from Oldham, it seemed at first to be a beautiful sunny day. It was a dream from which he would shortly be very rudely awakened:

 I thought it was a glorious day actually. It was a nice day, beautiful day. There was the sun… it got really warm and the birds seemed to be singing very nicely to me. We weren’t being fired on although firing seemed to be taking place- I thought so anyway. But it wasn’t until eleven o’clock in the morning that I realised that the birds that were singing were bullets whistling past and there was a fierce battle going on.[13]

When they realised that the Rebels had already crossed the river, the battalion very rapidly pulled back to the top of the ridge and took up defensive positions: No. 3 Company to the left, No. 4 Company to the right, the Machine-Gun Company just behind them and Number 1 Company in reserve, much to the disgust of its commander, the ex-IRA man Kit Conway[14]. They then prepared to engage with the advancing Nationalist forces.[15]

The battalion was then subjected to a three hour artillery and machine-gun barrage, before being attacked by ‘at least three battalions’ of experienced Moroccan infantry. For many of the British volunteers, this was their first experience of action, and they faced the battle-hardened, elite regulars of Franco’s Army of Africa. The Moroccan troops were highly skilled soldiers, in their element when advancing across the open terrain of the Jarama Valley.[16] Jason Gurney described the absolute horror that the rapid advance of the North African troops had on the poorly trained volunteers, and he effectively summarised the inequality between the two opposing factions:

Nobody at Madrigueras had said anything about artillery fire or the genius of Moorish infantry to move across country without presenting a target for anyone but a highly-trained marksman- a category that included no one in our outfit…[The Moors] were professionals, backed by a mass of artillery and heavy machine-gun fire supplied by the German Condor legion. It was a formidable opposition to be faced by a collection of city-bred young men with no experience of war, no idea how to find cover on an open hillside, and no competence as marksmen.[17]

Their position worsened considerably when the members of the Machine-Gun Company discovered that their Maxim machine-guns had been given cartridge belts filled with the wrong ammunition.[18] Deprived of their machine-guns, Harold Fry’s No. 2 company was forced to resort to firing their rifles desperately at the enemy soldiers advancing rapidly towards them.

Both No. 3 and No. 4 Companies quickly began to sustain casualties due to the artillery barrage and machine-gun fire. No. 3 Company lost their commander, Bill Briskey, and his replacement, Ken Stalker, within a short time of each other. Meanwhile, No 4 Coy’s terrified commander was making little preparation to defend the company against the imminent assault.[19]

Wintringham had initially ordered No. 1 Company to hold in reserve, but due to the threat it was hastily moved up to a small bare hill to the right of the companies on the ridge. Under the ferocious Nationalist attack, the Franco-Belge Battalion further to the north of the British was forced to pull back, which brought the British companies and the battalion headquarters under lethal enfilading machine-gun fire which swept across them from their right. The British tried desperately to hold their ground, but were cut to pieces.

Kit Conway’s Company, mostly seasoned veterans, but reinforced by new recruits – many of whom had only a few days training – were forced to retreat back on to the ridge on the top of Suicide Hill. When Moroccan troops appeared on the knoll to the right, Conway withdrew his men back further still, but was hit and mortally wounded in the process.[20] With no form of communication with the company commanders apart from runners – perhaps the most dangerous job of all in the battalion- Tom Wintringham later described the confusion surrounding him at the time:

 I did not know that casualties were mounting steadily and quickly; that Kit Conway, when I lost sight of him, was not lying down to seek cover, but was dying; that the section commanders in his company were either dead or wounded; that the thin grass and weeds on the crest of the hill was being slowly mown down, as if a gigantic scythe was passing and repassing, by bullets from the machine-rifles of the Moors and machine-guns of the Germans. I did not know that the wounded I could see were only a small proportion of those limping or lifted to the rear…I did not know that one of my company commanders was on the edge of panic and would come running back to find me.[21]

By the afternoon, the desperate position of the battalion and its mounting casualties left them with little option but to attempt an orderly retreat from Suicide Hill back to the battalion headquarters on the plateau, dragging their wounded comrades with them. But, as one volunteer remembered, ‘There weren’t many to go back.[22] As the dispirited British pulled back, Moroccan soldiers rushed forward over the top of Suicide Hill in order to occupy the positions relinquished by the retreating British.

At this point, the battalion experienced their first moment of good fortune. After a desperately frustrating day spent without ammunition for their machine-guns, the correct calibre bullets had at last appeared. Quickly, the machine-guns were brought into operation and used with devastating effect on the Moroccan soldiers who, for once, were caught out in the open and totally unawares. The Moroccan troops either dropped down out of sight and waited for the cover of darkness or, where they could, retreated out of range. This brought to an end the first day of the battle of Jarama.

Like other Republican units, the British Battalion had endured seven hours of extremely heavy losses: ‘Out of the 400 men in the rifle companies, only 125 were left. Altogether less than half the battalion remained’.[23] The remnants gathered at the headquarters on the sunken road, or the cookhouse next to the farm, desperate for food and water. After dark, Jason Gurney was asked by Tom Wintringham to reconnoitre the sunken road which ran across the plateau, near its forward edge. Here he made a horrifying discovery; about 50 injured men were lying on stretchers, where they had been left and forgotten in the chaotic and desperate times during the day. By the time he discovered them it was too late; most were dying or already dead.[24]

During the night a number of stragglers were discovered at the cookhouse by George Aitken, who had replaced Dave Springhall as battalion political commissar. Aitken attempted to cajole them back to the line but, as he freely admits, some volunteers were pressed back to the front under the threat of his gun.[25] Another group of men were found hiding in wine vaults in a farmhouse behind the lines. They were also marched back to the front. Coerced or not, the volunteers would be desperately needed on the frontline over the next two days.

The following day was to be no less terrifying for the shocked and traumatized survivors of the battalion. Morning began quietly, though the volunteers could hear a battle erupting to their right and see a huge amount of enemy activity in the valley below. Wintringham prepared his depleted forces as best he could. Harold Fry’s Machine-Gun Company were kept in a forward position, overlooking the valley and river below them. No. 4 Company, under Bert Overton, were placed to the right and No. 1 Company, now under André Diamant, were facing the open left flank. Early in the morning, Dave Springhall, now the assistant political commissar of the 15^th International Brigade, brought orders from headquarters that the battalion was to attack the enemy forces directly front of them, in order to take pressure of the Thaelmanns and Dimitrovs to their right. Springhall assured Wintringham that the attack would be supported by aircraft, tanks and the elite Spanish Lister Brigade.

However, no tanks appeared and the air support turned out to be 3 little planes who quickly dropped their bombs and disappeared. This made little or no impression on the Rebel forces, who were well dug in, and had set up effective machine-gun positions. In addition, the nationalists launched another artillery barrage on the British Battalion’s positions. Faced with a suicidal 600 yard advance into enemy machine-guns, Wintringham ignored the order to go forward. The order was later repeated, and again Wintringham ignored it. This was a brave decision, for he must have been fully aware that it could have seen him executed for dereliction of duty.

When dawn broke, the members of Harold Fry’s No. 2 machine-gun company were able to see a number of rebel soldiers who had moved up in the night between the ridge and Suicide Hill and quickly drove them back with concentrated machine-gun fire.[26] But as the day progressed, the Franco-Belge and Dimitrov Battalions on the right were gradually pushed back and the Battalion found itself once again surrounded on three sides. By late afternoon Wintringham was aware that an assault on Fry’s position was imminent, as small groups of Moroccan troops could be seen working their way forward to Fry’s right, where Bert Overton’s No. 4 Company was situated. At this point the nervous Overton finally panicked, and withdrew his company right back to the sunken road, as he had been begging the Scottish political commissar George Aitken to allow him to do all day.[27] This left the Machine-Gun Company’s flank totally unprotected and rebel forces quickly took advantage of the situation and surrounded them. As many as 30 members of the Company, including its commander Harold Fry, and his assistant, Ted Dickenson, were captured. [28]

When Bert Overton realized what he had done, he tried to make amends by leading a charge of 40 men in a desperate attempt to retake the trenches recently occupied by Fry’s Machine-Gun Company. The Nationalists soldiers simply mowed them down with the machine-guns they just captured. Only six of the 40 men made it back to the British positions. In the mêlée Tom Wintringham sustained a leg wound, and George Aitken took temporary control of the battalion. By nightfall only 160 still remained in the line.[29] With Wintringham injured, Fry captured, and Overton in tatters, the British Battalion was in an unenviable position. So the return from his sickbed of the experienced and widely respected Jock Cunningham, came not a moment too soon.

The third day of the battle, on the 14 February, brought a new assault on the British Battalion’s lines by a fresh Nationalist brigade, supported by tanks. Under severe crossfire and without any specialised equipment to combat the tanks, Jock Cunningham had little choice but to withdraw the battalion away from the sunken road. One of battalion (‘OR’) later described their desperate retreat:

About 1 p.m. I heard the tanks on our left…At that moment, a tank shell burst a few yards away. Across to the left a big tank, bigger than any of ours, loomed up. Behind it swarmed Moors. Their main fire was on the Spanish Company on our left. Simultaneously, the din on the right became terrific. Nothing could live in the face of such fire…In those days we had no anti-tank guns, no grenades, no anti-tank material. The left flank broke, and the rout spread to the whole line. The slaughter was terrible. One would see five men running abreast, and four of them suddenly crumple up… Here and there, little groups rallied to stem the Fascist advance. Five or six times, a little bunch of Number 1 Company under André Diamint held up the Moors. Finally, they too, had to give up the unequal fight.[30]

The Irish leader, Frank Ryan, wrote:

Dispirited by heavy casualties, by defeat, by lack of food, worn out by three days of gruelling fighting, our men appeared to have reached the end of their resistance.
Some were still straggling down the slopes from what had been, up to an hour ago, the front line. And now, there was no line, nothing between the Madrid road and the Fascists but disorganised groups of weary, war-wrecked men. After three days of terrific struggle, the superior numbers, the superior armaments of the Fascists had routed them. All, as they came back, had similar stories to tell: of comrades dead, of conditions that were more than flesh and blood could stand, of weariness they found hard to resist.[31]

With the British machine-guns crushed underneath the tanks, the desperately weakened British line finally broke and the volunteers retreated in small groups back down the slope towards the Chinchón road.

But here they were stopped by Lieutenant-Colonel Gal, the commander of the 15 International Brigade. He explained to them that they were the only troops between the rebels and the Valencia Road.[32] Despite their physical and mental exhaustion, 140 volunteers marched back with Jock Cunningham and Frank Ryan to try to recapture their lost positions. Under no illusions about the situation they were walking into, the volunteers marched, singing the Internationale to bolster their spirits, and picking up stragglers on the way.[33]

Sounding suspiciously like a Comintern propaganda creation, the story of what became known as ‘the great rally’ is nevertheless corroborated by many witnesses. and has become an powerful image of the British Battalion’s involvement in Spain.[34] There is no doubt that, as Hugh Thomas admitted, ‘It was a brave performance’.[35] The volunteers’ courage, and the deception that enabled them to fool the rebel forces into thinking they were faced by more than a handful of men, held the line at a critical moment for the Republic. It was a lucky break for the battalion, as Tom Wintringham described:

There were no Republican forces to the south of the British Battalion to their left. However, this weakness was disguised by the stubborn defence of Suicide Hill. This is the justification, the achievement, of the defence of Suicide Hill. We held our own half-mile or more; we masked the utter weakness, emptiness, of the three miles south of us.[36]… A battalion that does not know how to be defeated deserves an occasional stroke of luck…The biggest and best organized drive that Franco had so far made had been stopped – within a few miles of its starting place. Arganda Bridge was ours. The Madrid-Valencia Road was ours. Madrid lived.[37]

The Nationalist forces, fooled into believing that fresh reinforcements had been brought up to the front, retreated back to their earlier positions. During the night of 14 to 15 February, Spanish units were brought up, and the gap in the line was finally plugged. Both sides dug defensive fortifications and a stalemate ensued, which neither side was able to overcome. The positions remained virtually static for the rest of the war.

However, it was not the end of the carnage, with men continuing to be killed, either by snipers, or in futile attempts to break the deadlock. One of the most costly came shortly after the arrival on the front of the American Lincoln Battalion, and who played a central role in the attack.

Almost two weeks after the end of the three day battle, on 27 February, Colonel Gal launched an attack on the strongly held front between San Martín and Pingarrón. Facing well-directed Nationalist machine-gun fire, many volunteers refused to advance and those who did were shot to pieces. This was the Americans’ first action and they suffered terribly, losing 120 killed and 175 wounded. Among the dead was the Irish poet Charlie Donnelly. Manchester volunteer Charles Morgan was also involved in the disastrous attack:

We were all in trenches, we were told on the morning that there would be air cover, there would be a bombardment. There was neither. We were just rushed over the top to face crossfire and machine-guns. It was a slaughter. We didn’t stand a cat in hell’s chance! I saw lads, my comrades that I’d learnt to love, die and some of these boys never fired a bloody shot.[38]

As Jud Colman, a comrade of Morgan from the Manchester Young Communist League, explained, ‘Most of the attacks were almost suicidal, because there’s no way you can send men against machine-guns without losing some. It was just physically impossible’.[39]

Long portrayed by many supporters of the Brigades as a triumph, the battle in fact merely stemmed the fascist advance. It also provided a brutal wake-up call for those who believed that the rightness of their cause would ensure the Republic’s victory. As the French writer, author and philosopher Albert Camus later wrote:

It was in Spain that men learned that one can be right and still be beaten, that force can vanquish spirit, that there are times when courage is not its own reward.

Yet, despite this, the international Brigades fought on. The Spanish Republic fought on. Indeed, the following month, the Republican army would score a stunning victory at Guadalajara, bringing hope that eventually right could triumph over might. Sadly, the next major action of the British Battalion in Spain, the battle of Brunete in the full heat of the Spanish summer, would suggest otherwise.